Surprise, surprise. Marc Armbinder reports that the press is ginning up the Clinton/Obama rift (just as we have all known):
Reports of strife between negotiators for Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama are exaggerated and the two sides are nearing an agreement on how Clinton’s delegates will participate in the formal nominating process at the Democratic National Convention, according to advisers to both Democrats.
Although Clinton had resisted pressure from donors, allies and supporters to accept demands to allow her name placed in nomination, she and aides to Obama seemed to realize independently that doing so would be the best way to incorporate and welcome Clinton’s supporters into Obama’s general election campaign, both symbolically and practically.
***But within the past week, Clinton advisers informed the Obama team that many of Clinton’s staunchest supporters felt strongly that something had to be done, and that Clinton had concluded that, in part for the sake of unity, their wishes ought to be respected. They heard back immediately: the Obama campaign had always been open to having her name placed in nomination alongside his.
***On August 6, Clinton told donors at a private fundraiser that she thinks “that people want to feel like, O.K., it’s a catharsis, we’re here, we did it, and then everybody get behind Senator Obama. That is what most people believe is the best way to go.”
That sentiment is shared by Obama advisers, even as reports of tension between her aides and Obama’s campaign have proliferated in the press. To the contrary, multiple sources in both campaigns have described the negotiations as relatively free of acrimony. Obama’s convention managers and his political are acutely aware of the fact that at least 45% percent of delegates were stalwart backers of Sen. Clinton during the primary.
***Clinton aides also confirmed, and Obama aides did not dispute, that it was Clinton who informed the Obama campaign that she did not to give the keynote address to the convention. It is not clear whether the Obama camp would have offered the honorific, but they did not, sources said, deliberately deny it to Clinton.
Our failed experiment of a free press once again rises to the occasion. They have their story, and they are sticking to it, despite the actual facts.
*** Update ***
This OTB headline made me laugh out loud:
Clinton Supporters Want To Lose Again For Catharsis
Cruel.
Brother Flaming Taser of Warm Reason
Is the site safe yet?
Kevin
For the next five minutes or so, possibly.
Xenos
This impresses me. The idea behind the keynote is to get a view of someone who may be the nominee in four to eight years, so this indicates that Clinton is willing to admit that her time has passed.
Davis X. Machina
On the tombstone of the Republic will be the epitaph ‘Killed By A Story Arc’.
jake
Ooo! Those wascally Reports of Tension. Always proliferating in the press no matter how much RoT poison it puts down. Imagine the shame the press feels when it is FORCED to keep disseminating RoT even though it knows it is repeating a big fat lie.
Jesus Christ on a Gutenberg Bible.
If legislators made use of the passive voice punishable by a large fine this country would never face another recession again.
Incertus
What is the media going to do now that the PUMAs have been shown to be as irrelevant as we all knew they were from the beginning?
Dennis - SGMM
What? You want the Bush administration to owe China another trillion dollars?
Incertus
Well, I’m sure they’d include an exception for legislators. After all, they want to keep the ability to say “mistakes were made.”
Bill H
So the convention will feature a speech one night by Bill Clinton, a speech another night by Hillary Clinton, and Hillary Clinton placed in nomination and named endlessly in a roll call vote. We will then move on to the general election having demonstrated how wonderfully united we are behind, um behind, um what’s his name again? Oh, come on, that guy who actually won the nomination, you know who I mean, that Muslim guy.
Brother Flaming Taser of Warm Reason
start Lemon Suckers United?
wasabi gasp
Catharsis – the Greek god of blue-in-the-face wrist slitting.
Litlebritdifrnt
This is still not satisfying the PUMA’s unless they are speculating (“yeah, Hillary must have the required amount of Superdels who have crossed over to her = she will be the NOMINEE WHOOT!) As someone over at the Anti Puma so eloquently said (and I paraphrase) “the PUMA’s will not be happy unless Barack Obama appears on the convention stage dressed in a sackcloth and ashes and prostrates himself at Hillary’s feet while begging for forgiveness for having the audacity to challenge her Queenness and then commits ritual suicide with something sharp and pointy.”
Frank Jacobs
I have nothing really to say about any of this, but I figured it was so cool that I actually got a Balloon Juice page to resolve I thought I might as well commemorate it with a pointless comment!
I will now press submit, and pray that the site is up long enough for me to try to read the story…
Xenos
To which god do you pray for Balloon-Juice based supplication?
I suppose Hephaestus used a lot of hot air in his craftsmanship, but the better choice might be Notus, god of the South Wind. Since the south wind brought rain, there could be some really excellent forms of worship to indulge in.
cleek
Opus
cleek
don’t jinx it!
vwcat
david shuester just nailed two pumas to the wall on Hardball.
He skewered them and then dismissed them.
excellent.
Brother Flaming Taser of Warm Reason
I wish I was home to see that. I guess I’ll have to wait for video.
cleek
what has to be done is simple: Hillary needs to sit each of these people down in a room, look them in the eye and tell them to Cut The Bullshit. just like El Mavericko would.
Frank Jacobs
See, this is the thing. What I can’t understand, assuming that the “prevailing wisdom” about Hillary is true – namely that she’s in favor of party unity and supports Obama as the legitimate winner of the nomination – why has she so far been so reluctant to tell the PUMAs and their ilk straight out: “You. Aren’t. Helping.”
This is the one thing that everyone on both sides have needed to hear for months now, and the one thing she has completely failed to articulate. I can’t help but wonder if it is because she is deliberately leading on her supporters or if it is because she is, at the end of the day, a really crummy communicator.
Hrm…
cleek
i’ve seen her say that in public speeches. so, good for her.
but whoever these “Clinton’s staunchest supporters” are, if they’re important enough to get the ear of the Obama campaign, and important enough to get a bullshit show-vote at the convention, they can’t number more than a few dozen, and they clearly need to get some special attention – a little one-on-one time with Hillary herself.
that Hillary’s let them fester for so long renews my doubts about her commitment to the Party.
Gemina13
It just occurred to me that there may a reason behind Hillary’s and Obama’s silence on the deal until now: they’re deliberately smoking out hostile sources, and the Obama campaign is working on ways to deal with them once the convention is over. Same with the PUMAs. What better way to find out who’s behind them than to let the poor suckers yak it up for the camera? Find out who they are, and who’s been instigating their behavior.
cleek
here we go : PUMA dead-end conference:
there are hilarious pictures, too.
Conservatively Liberal
Flatus, God of the Ill Wind, is the go-to god for me.
w vincentz
The Perennial Sister of Peace and Reconcilation With an Appropriately Placed Dildo (and new batteries) has spoken.
Hillary fucked? OK ineffective junior senator from NY, fuck everyone else. Share your PAIN, Hillbitch.
Xenos
I was not able to catch the end of the Shuster piece on Hardball, but by the time they admitted to raising only $50,000 so far, and that the spokeslady had given $500 to McCain, it was clear it was not going to end well. Maybe Crooksandliars.com has it on now.
HRA
This other round of Clinton hoopla has only served to make me feel like I did when she stuck around after it was all over months ago in the primary. Then on top of that she wanted Obama to help pay for her debt after she gave McCain a bevy of attack points for the general election. Of course, we have the interview not too long ago of Bill not being able to give a straight answer in support of Obama. All of this just adds up to their love of self and not to be trusted at all.
I need to point out that Mary Matalin (wife of Clinton supporter, James Carville) is somehow connected to the publisher of Obama Nation.
That roll call better be over fast.
PanAmerican
PUMA FAIL!
oh really
Once you accept the fact that presidential politics aren’t about the welfare of either the country or the party, but about the personal gratification and the aggrandizement of the individual candidate (this is certainly true of Hillary, Bill, and McCain; I’m much less certain about Obama, but time and celebrity have been known to have a corrosive effect on a person’s character) it’s not difficult to understand. Hillary can’t afford to openly oppose Obama, and she’s got to be torn about his success in November — he wins and the presidency is gone from her future unless Obama dies in office or is impeached for being a Muslim or being uppity; he loses and she gets part of the blame.
I imagine there have been all-night strategy meetings trying to figure out how to keep Obama from winning, while avoiding any blame for his defeat.
Even though she knows she’s at some risk if Obama loses, I have to believe that deep down she wants him to get crushed by McCain, because that leaves a larger window for her in 2012 than Obama’s winning does.
The key to your question may be that “the prevailing wisdom” isn’t correct.
Ed Marshall
why has she so far been so reluctant to tell the PUMAs and their ilk straight out: “You. Aren’t. Helping.”
It wouldn’t work. The remaining PUMA’s are mostly crypto-republicans or (and I’m not throwing this out there lightly) old women and a few men with serious racial prejudices.
There is zero point in trying to convince crypto-republicans of anything because they are just having a good time bullshitting a sliver of democrats. There is also zero point in trying to talk the benighted remains of the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Conservatively Liberal
I notice that Paulie Abeles is named in one of the PUMA ‘conference’ pictures that lists the ‘events’ or ‘panels’. She is the wife of Nathan Abeles, who is the head of the Monticello Association for descendants of Thomas Jefferson. She was the white lady who posed as a 67 year black woman who was a descendant of Sally Hemmings. She infiltrated a Hemmings Yahoo Group to get inside information so her husband could use it to block attempts by some association members who were sympathetic to the Hemmings descendants being allowed to join the association. Paulie is also a Hillaryis44 nutjob (Spega), and she fits right in there with the rest of the racists and crazies.
Seems she is now working to keep a black guy out of the White House. Go figure.
jbarntt
Our failed experiment of a free press once again rises to the occasion. They have their story, and they are sticking to it, despite the actual facts.
Curiously, the “free press” thing means exactly that. Some writer for some “free press” said something against the Messiah and all of a sudden we’ve got a constitutional crisis ?
Sorry John Cole got the vapors because of a news account that suggests Hillary isn’t happy over losing the nomination race.
Why should she be happy ? I wouldn’t be happy to be a loser, and might well harbor ill feelings. I guess Cole is above all such petty politics. LOL
Phoebe
She has to humor the PUMAs because she wants their money.
Also, did anybody see the Colbert catharsis-as-word-of-the-day? It was fantabulous.
Conservatively Liberal
jbarntt, did you understand the point that John was making in this post? Your response indicates that you did not, at least as far as I can tell. IMO, part of the problem is that I think you come in here armed with your preconceptions and whatever you read is filtered through these preconceptions, with the result being you completely missing the point in your response. It really makes you look, um… odd.
Seriously, you need to bone up on reading comprehension or drop your preconceptions and just respond to what is written. Your response has nothing to do with the point John was making. I have been reading John for a long time and I have never had a problem understanding the point(s) he is trying to make. It ain’t that difficult if you are on top of the news, as most regulars here are. If you are not sure, ask questions and I am sure that people would be happy to clarify for you.
dslak
Jbarntt got the point, but he’s got his eyes set on that McCain golf bag.